HN user

alanfang

74 karma
Posts8
Comments32
View on HN

More like completely impossible for a 36 year old that doesn't have decades of previous cross country skiing or athletic experience. It is a hugely demanding physical sport and the difference between a top athlete and a proficient amateur is gigantic. He would be better off trying to get bobsled team in a tropical country off the ground and practice sprinting with a sled for a couple of years. You still won't stand a chance at winning but you might qualify.

Have the mods been editing titles to include the year of the article recently? I've noticed a lot more of the front page articles include the year in parentheses now.

The Web Is A Mess 14 years ago

Wikipedia links are nofollow to discourage people from spamming it, not because they are worried about losing link juice.

The huge amount of tree cover in New Hampshire historically speaking is also a pretty recent event. 100+ years ago NH was mostly farmland with little to no tree cover.

I've run a significant amount of traffic with Facebook Ads and never saw click fraud anywhere close to these kinds of numbers. By estimates it was somewhere between 3-5%, which is pretty typical across major ad networks.

It's also worth noting that Facebook has given refunds for click fraud in the past. That is if you can actually get a hold of someone in support who will talk to you, which isn't easy.

Not jumping for free throws isn't just a tradition. Jump shots sacrifice accuracy to make it more difficult for defensive players to block your shot. There's no risk of your shot being blocked for a free throw so players don't jump.

ROI on T-shirts 14 years ago

To me the CTR seems reasonable, if anything I would guess that 0.14% is a low estimate. The conversion rate on the other hand is sky high. Even for a free software product expecting a 7% conversion rate on fairly untargeted traffic is unreasonable.

Based off the ads the author cites in the article the issue is the lack of data, not poor targeting by advertisers. For example the author wouldn't see the "Boyfriend Wanted" ad if he listed himself as married in his Facebook profile (Facebook aggressively forbids dating ads targeted towards people who list themselves as married or in a relationship).

All online advertising platforms rely on advertisers to target their ads. If this really is the issue, which I doubt, it applies to the entire advertising industry not just Facebook.